What marketeers can learn from music
In How Music Works, musical genius David Byrne shows how music spreads when it feels both known and new. He uses the story of Brahms’s Lullaby. The melody had lived for centuries in oral tradition, sung by mothers to children, before Johannes Brahms shaped it into the version we still recognise today. The tune carried deep familiarity, but Brahms gave it a frame, a presence, a spark that made it last.
Familiarity in Marketing
That’s the balance to aim for. When something is too familiar, it fades into background noise. When it’s too novel, it feels strange and never takes root. The magic happens in the middle: recognisable enough to be absorbed instantly, distinct enough to be remembered.
Brands work on the same principle. Logos lean on forms our eyes know how to read. Slogans echo rhythms and phrases that already sit in our language. Campaigns succeed when they feel fluent, when the audience doesn’t need to work to understand them. Familiarity reduces friction, and that ease of decoding builds trust.
Why Complete Novelty Fails
Originality on its own can backfire. Work that is designed to shock or puzzle often asks too much from the audience. People rarely pause to solve a riddle in the middle of a scroll. They skip. Recognition is not the enemy of creativity—it’s the condition that allows creativity to register.
The strongest brands find the same middle ground Brahms found. They use codes their audience already carries. Colours, shapes, rhythms but add one element that tilts the balance. A surprising phrase. An unexpected shade. A detail that flips recognition into memory.
Why Advertisers Should Watch Ads
This is also why people in advertising can’t look away from advertising itself. If you work in this business, you need to see what’s out there. Stay on social media. Don’t use an ad blocker. Every banner, every TikTok, every awkward pre-roll is part of the cultural wallpaper your audience lives with. You need to recognise the clichés before you can twist them.
Creative hooks rarely appear out of thin air. They come from being immersed in what’s happening right now—on the next platform, in the next format. Familiarity starts there. So does the twist.
How Music Works, How Marketing Works
Brahms’s Lullaby is still sung today because it carries both comfort and spark. Brands that strike the same balance, grounded in what people know, win a place in the memory of their audience. That’s how music works. That’s how marketing works.
